I’ve just returned from a weekend with my mystery community friends at the New England Crime Bake, my hometown conference. It’s learning experience, a reunion of old friends and a chance to meet new ones.

I was reflecting that I’ve had a couple of weird experiences at the hotel when I’ve been at Crime Bake. (You’ll see why in a minute.)

The first one was in the hotel when Crime Bake was in Dedham, MA. The conference occupied pretty much the entire hotel on Saturday, but on Sunday other groups would come in as we were leaving.

One Sunday mid-morning when I got on the hotel elevator there was a single woman already on it. She was exotically beautiful and dressed in a bright pink bridesmaid gown, which looked fabulous on her.

In her hands she held a dyed-to-match pair of strappy high-heeled sandals, a dyed-to-match clutch purse…and a big red brick.

We’d ridden up two floors before I could hold back no more. I asked her what the brick was for.

“The bottoms of the bridesmaid shoes are slippery,” she said. “The brick is to rough them up.”

Perfectly logical, right? But somehow that image of the beautiful woman, in an elevator, dressed in a gown, carrying a heavy brick, has stuck in my head. Who is she? Who is she going to meet? And what is going to happen?

This year when I left Crime Bake, I was greeted by this sight.

A huge pile of gym bags on a luggage rack with doll arms and legs and skulls sticking out.

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Published by Barbara Ross

Barbara Ross is the author of seven Maine Clambake Mysteries. The latest, Steamed Open, was released in December 2018. Her novellas featuring Julia Snowden are included along with stories by Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis in the anthologies Eggnog Murder and Yule Log Murder. You can visit her website at http://www.maineclambakemysteries.com.
View all posts by Barbara Ross